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The Wal-Mart debate is a tough one. We discussed Wal-Mart, Home Depot and other megabrand companies rather extensively in business school.
One class taught me that the objective of every company, no matter how big or small, is growth. If a company is not growing/expanding, it's not considered to be doing well (any news report about financial performance will be cynical if a company posts 0% change).
Wal-Mart's in a sticky situation. Inflation and such (competition) requires it to continue growing, adding employees, building stores. And it can't scale back because investors will panic and cause a huge mkt value loss (though the merchandising will keep going and they'll do just fine anyway).
It's funny because there's finally a store that basically has a monopoly and has the *cheapest* prices - yet people complain because it's growing bigger than one ever imagined.
Consumer boycotts will recover a fair portion of the small business economy (not all of it, but a good amount). Probably the best way to keep things under control - the big shots can't do much about it.
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